This is probably Frictional Game's 2nd best outing, right behind SOMA.

Gameplay-wise, I was pleasantly surprised by how robust and fun and satisfying it was--probably their best game to date from that perspective. It's basically a first-person Resident Evil 1, complete with fuel management, ammo scarcity, and VERY limited backpack space that you can gradually upgrade. The Beast was fun to navigate, opening up segments of the titular bunker was tickled my Metroidvania side, and the scares were constant and well-earned. There're no pre-determined jump scares, just your tools, your wits, and an open level.

Story-wise, I found it lacking. The presentation was excellent, from the gorey corpses to Henri's hands; I particularly loved the manual ammo checks you have to do. The game was very easy to fall into and let the immersive nature wash over you. But, it wasn't in service to a great story.

The ending in particular was lacking, but it wasn't all bad; it wasn't even terrible or deflating, just lacking. The journals were fine and I loved the visual connections to Amnesia 1 and Rebirth (albeit I couldn't finish the latter), and the realization of what or who the monster is was fun. But it wasn't in service to any greater or even personal narrative, it was just... fine. There. This is a gameplay-focused Frictional game, and I can't fault them for that choice. I would love to see this classic Resident Evil-inspired exploration gameplay expounded upon even further.

a quintessential 4 star 3.5 star (or 3.5 star 4 star?) "hey remember this thing you liked well here's More Of It" indie videoed game experience. loved the first and third chapters, kinda really disliked the second. aforementioned first and third chapters are generally excellent old-school Resi save box run-plotting goodness, but the unrelentingly slavish adherence to its influences throughout (e.g. the distressingly literal deployment of Silent Hill's otherworld aesthetic sensibility - capitalism is a literal meat grinder, geddit??) really makes me wish Rose Engine took some actual real swings of their own rather than just quoting power chords from their idols - also like, it's 2022 your survival horror game does not need boss fights and if you choose to do them anyway they don't need to be mid at best! also the narrative's signal to noise ratio is just enough to move my poor lesbian heart but one does kinda start to detect the tang of deliberate obscurantism for want of anything of substance to say with this material.

anyway this probably comes off more negative than I actually felt abt it, which is not dissimilar to how I felt about Norco earlier this year - this is Very Good but could have been Great, and I'm v excited to see what this team makes next! thumbs up, gets a rec, will def replay at some point for the secret/true ending.

god i want to like this game so much more but i just cant. i love 2 and 3, and so was looking forward to this one but im a bit disappointed by it. i found it extremely frustrating, and not in a way which made it more scary or anything like that.

the entire second half is an obnoxious escort mission with a girl who has all the AI intelligence of a spoon combined with you basically just revisiting areas that youve already seen in the first half over again. but now you have a handicap. whoopee.

enemies arent nearly as frightening or symbolic as they are in the other games (twin victims are pants shitting and very tragic tho, gj there lads). fuck the ghosts, such a consistent annoyance to deal with. the levels are kinda cool, but constantly going back and forth between them and the room isnt that great. storywise, its just a generic serial killer plot with elements of the silent hill cult kinda taped onto it. bit of a let down after the beautiful emotional potency of 2 and the legitimately terrifying coming-of-age of 3. the characters in this story are ok, and henry is a particularly relatable protagonist. theres a bunch of bells and whistles attached to the inventory system making inventory management a nightmare, plus the weird ass advanced combat system feels a bit out of place. if nothing else, i respect team silent for experimenting.

ok enough negativity, i think the concept of the room is really cool. watching it slowly change over time from a safe haven to a nightmare is legitimately really disturbing. its especially relatable after lockdown, good grief. because i liked the characters, i found the good ending a very pleasant reward for what is otherwise such a disheartening game. the bad end is also particularly depressing.

graphically SH4 looks amazing, and the soundtrack is also great, although not including the full version of tender sugar is a crime. general sound design is noticeably a lot quieter than other entries which i appreciate. big fan of how the room ties into certain puzzles, too. although such things are criminally underused.

in conclusion i kinda feel torn, because there is a lot to like here, but at the same time i think if SH4 didnt have the silent hill name attached it would be kinda forgotten about and not as critically acclaimed.

i know this game was not quite the vision team silent wanted to release, and we can only blame konami for that. i suppose the take away from this game and silent hill in general is screw konami. hard.

Dead Space 1 and 2 were formative games for me. I tend to liken them to the video game equivalent of Alien and Aliens: The first game is slower paced and creepy while DS2 is more actiony but still incredibly tense. Unfortunately, that gives Dead Space 3 the desgination of being the Alien3 of the franchise - a mess of legitimately good ideas ruined by executive mandates. The intro of Dead Space 3 bummed me out so much I didn't even play the rest (yes, I've heard the ship graveyard section is good, still not interested). So when EA announced they were remaking Dead Space, I had one thought: "Please, for the love of God, don't fuck this up."

And I have good news: They didn't fuck it up!

Dead Space splits the diffrence between complete reimaginings like Resident Evil 2 2019 and 1:1 recreations like The Last of Us Part 1. I would say the split comes to about 70% old content versus 30% new, which totally works for me. The biggest moments in the game remain largely unchanged, but a lot of content around the margins has been adjusted to create a more cohesive experience.

Speaking of cohesiveness, the biggest change is that the Ishimura is now one interconnected ship you can navigate freely instead of a series of linear levels. Personally, I think this is the best change they could have made: the Ishimura is as much of a character in the game as Isaac Clarke, and now it truly feels like a real ship that you can explore at your leisure. The dev team at EA Motive also added side quests to help encourage more backtracking and exploration: none of these feel necessary but they're a nice bonus that help flesh out the story as a treat for those who seek them out.

I wrote in my Callisto Protocol review that my biggest issue with that game was the weapon balance, since melee was way better than anything else. In contrast, I was impressed at how the Dead Space remake rebalances the weapons so that they all feel useful in some way. In the original, it was a running joke among players that the Plasma Cutter might as well be the only weapon since it was so strong and practical. In the remake, it's still good but takes way more ammo to kill enemies unless you're extremely precise. As a result I found myself running out of Plasma Cutter ammo and using weapons I mostly ignored in the original, like the contact beam or the force gun. You're encouraged to use every part of the buffalo in a way that feels natural.

Believe it or not, I don't really have any issues with Isaac talking this time; it makes sense from a consistency standpoint since he talks in the other two, and the devs have said in interviews that they purposefully didn't make Isaac talk more than he had to in order to keep the core gameplay immersive (a smart move). I also think making Hammond and Daniels more sympathetic is understandable in order to strengthen the impact of the later story twists.

However, there's one story change I don't like, and this might just be a personal nitpick since I haven't seen anyone else mention it: In Dead Space 2008, the Unitology aspects of the plot don't become prominent until the second half, when it becomes clear that the huge Unitologist presence on the ship was far bigger than initially presumed. In comparison, DS 2023 front-loads the Unitology elements of the plot and tells the player from the very beginning why Isaac doesn't like them (something that isn't revealed in 2008 until New Game +). I don't think it's entirely a bad thing, and I get that Unitology is synonomous with Dead Space now so it's not exactly a secret anymore, but I really liked how the initial game treated Unitology as an actual cult, quietly working behind the scenes and slowly taking over before anyone else realized it. The later Dead Space media kinda leaned into Unitologists as cartoon villains and I kind of hope Motive fights back against that impulse assuming they remake the other two.

My other complaint is that I actually wish they changed the last couple chapters more than they did. They were always my least favorite part of the original and it just feels like they throw out a ton of enemy encounters to pad out the run time.

Having said that, this is still a fantastic remake of an already fantastic game. Highly recommended for both fans of the original and people who missed out the first time.

Fun atmospheric sci-fi horror!

A straightforward horror action shooter in the vein of the Resident Evil games only if it was set in space and mixed with Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon. The story isn't anything original but it serves its purpose well. I will say though the twist at the end is pretty telegraphed and obvious even if you don't know it beforehand. It definitely has a creepy atmosphere to it with the moody lighting and sound design.

The gameplay is solid and the graphics still hold up really well for a game that's almost 15 years old.

PLASMA CUTTER SUPREMACY FOR THE WIN BOiiiii!

Swarmers can eat a bag of dicks though... Worst enemy type ever!

Pros:
- Somewhat engaging narrative
- Serviceable cast
- Conceptually, the combat is interesting and the emphasis on melee separates it from others in the genre

Cons:
- Boring antagonist
- Mediocre level design
- The combat's execution is piss poor with a weak dodging mechanic that works only 60% of the time
- Script is very B-grade

I have mixed feelings about this game. Of course it would have some resonance with Dead Space, given the team behind it, but it feels like a mimic with little soul integrated into the game. I think this is less survival horror and more action horror, but it tries to emulate the best of both worlds while not really striking either. I did enjoy my time though, and I do hope Glen can do things better if a sequel ever does get greenlit. Will be waiting for the Dead Space Remake in the interim.